A reading of the holy gospel according to Matthew. Jesus said to his disciples, if a man wishes to come after me, he must deny his very self, take up his cross, and begin to follow in my footsteps. Notice that word begin. That doesn't mean succeed almost. Whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find What problem would a man show if he were to gain the entire world and ruin his entire self in the process?
What can a man offer in exchange for his very self? The son of man will come with his father's glory accompanied by his angels. When he comes, he will repay each man according to his conduct. I assure you, among those standing here, there are some who will not experience death before they see the son of man come in his kingship. And this is the gospel of the lord.
That they wore over their white casket hat. They were called the black priors. Now, we've had the feast of Saint Cajetan just yesterday, and are better known really than Saint Dominic. He is one he is the one who started that particular movement. What movement?
Well, you have to grasp that it was a movement, and of to cultivate had this vision of following Christ absolutely owning nothing except Jesus Christ, giving your life entirely to him and letting the chips fall where they may. Me, me, you depended upon alms, upon charity for your daily bread. I mean, daily bread. Not tomorrow's or next week's, but today. They were called beggars.
And, of course, that's offending it. That sounds much better in English today than calling them a bunch of beggars, but they were beggars, and many upon them looked upon them as a bunch of bones. Now I'm not exaggerating this. I might not be luring myself to miracle characters, which I would never do, of course. But then you have to understand this.
This was an entirely That was the big thing of imitating Christ and showing by your example and living among men in the dusty and the dirty forms of the towns of the cities, not growing often to the the countryside, not running farms or plantations or wineries or what have you. But to be right about the people, they're giving a dramatic a dramatic impersonation of Jesus Christ. Now Dominic had this he had quite a different idea, but he had he agreed with they they did this independently. I don't wanna give you the impression that they that they sat down one night and over a few drinks decided to form two religious organizations. That's not the way these things have worked.
But Dominic saw the need for premiums. Dominic and Assisi are in the twelfth century, that's when they they got going, they lived into the thirteenth. Dominic saw the need of teaching, of bringing the word of God through catechesis doing this job. But where were you going to get the wherewithal to keep a roof over your head and food in your mouth? From the people.
How did you get it? By begging. They were beggars. They were bugs. They were mendings.
Now, this you can see that this was a very revolutionary, almost an admirable concept, as opposed to the well established, well heeled, affluent, prestigious, and powerful religious orders of the day, whether they be contemplatives or what kind of so that you see when Thomas Aquinas came coming from a royal battle, he said or at least aristocracy. When he decided to become a Dominic, his family was absolutely flabbergasted. A scion from the Duke of Aquino joining this bunch of beggars, They even offered him to become a card when he haunt a casino almost as a child. This is the way things were, you see, in the twelfth century when everything was nice and orderly and decent. He turned it down and he ran into trouble.
So they reverted very quickly to the University of Paris, but so did the Franciscans at almost the same time. Because when Thomas Aquinas was at the University of Paris, you also had Bonaventure there. They were there together. We don't know that they ever met, but they were there together for sure of that. So the point I would like to leave with you is that Francis, in his way, totally independently of Dominic Dominic in his way, totally independent of Assisi, the same Francis of Assisi, they both had this new idea of a body of men who would give themselves totally to doing a job for Christ in different ways, that they wouldn't they would not retract, they would not retreat from where men assembled, namely the cities and the marketplace.
They would be one of them there. See, in general, the religious orders of the time and this is not to downgrade them at all, it's true right now. That they they withdraw the Benedictines, the Carthusians, the Traptists, the rest of these religious orders of men and women, they withdraw. Buy some land, and they set up their own farms, and they try to be self sustaining. There's nothing wrong with that at all.
It's one way of looking at life. It's one way of dedicating your life to God. You see, the very idea that the Benedictines running boy schools has been rejected by some Benedictines. I was involved while I was present at Oxford when a I mean, at Downside, when a French Benedictine of the but also involving other pursuits, that the monks or the nuns coming in would bring some money, we call them dowries. And of course, in course of centuries, some of these religious borders became extremely wealthy, especially in land and real estate, which of course helped to fire the Reformation in England, for sure.
Now, here you have then Dominic Francis. In the twelfth century, things had changed by the sixteenth. In the twelfth century, these men had this vision of utter dedication to God without being involved with all the cares, responsibilities, or anything else or anything else. And the idea was to bring the word of God to the people, not to restrict it, not to live alone, not to live isolated from the crowd, from the cities, from the towns, from where people gathered, but to be among them and with them and up. They were not working priests.
He didn't have that idea at all. Saint Francis didn't didn't want his men to be priest at all because he couldn't reconcile that with the monarchy. As I say, that changed him. He got in trouble with that from the very beginning. But that was his idea, no question about it.
And so we have a very good concept. It was reverendly learned. And Dominic, for example, had when he drew up his constitution, it's one of the first good examples in the Western world of a democracy. Keep that in the back of your head as Dominican rule. Well, there are a lot of things you can say about Saint Dominic.
He's overshadowed by men like Hagibson and Thomas Aquinas and even John of the man who had a vision and saw the need of the day, and he did something about it. As we celebrate his memory, remember we are recalling a presence.